Pylimitics

To “finagle” is to “use dishonest or devious means to bring something about”. It’s still in use, and although many people believe that it’s a regional expression common only to the northeast US, the Dictionary of American Regional English points out that the word is used throughout the US. Its spelling varies though; sometimes it’s “fanigle”, “finigal”, and other variations. 

It is, however, a native US word, and pretty recent as words go. It appeared for the first time in the 1920s, originally as slang, and seems to have pretty rapidly come into more formal use. By 1955 it was in dictionaries and commonly used in ways like this example: “Any attempt to fudge or finagle or to get ahead of the other fellow will be recognized by the judge for what it is.”

“Finagle” may have come from “fainaigue,” a word from some dialects in England that refers to cheating, particularly in card games. There’s another possibly related word: “faineant” (an idler, or person who does nothing). While nobody knows where “fainaigue” comes from, “faineant” comes from French; it’s a compound formed of “fait” (he does) and “neant” (nothing). Another potential clue is that another way you can flout the rules in cards is to “renege,” which was originally spelled “reneague.” So it’s possible that “fainaigue” is a construction similar to “faineant” and originally meant “he reneges.” 

Speaking of “flouting the rules,” you’ll also see the expression as “flaunt the rules”. Both mean about the same thing nowadays, but before that they didn’t. Here’s what happened. “Flout” means to treat disdainfully, not care about at all. It’s most often used in the “flout the rules” construction. “Flaunt” has two meanings; to treat disdainfully, and also to show off or make a spectacle of, as in “to flaunt your wealth.” 

Both “flout” and “flaunt” showed up around the 1500s. “Flout” comes from the Middle English word “flouten,” which meant “to play the flute.” It was also used as a slang term meaning to jeer at or mock. Jeering from the sidelines (possibly even at flute players) eventually took precedence over the musical meaning, and by the time modern English displaced Middle English, “flout” had nothing at all to do with flutes. 

Nobody has found any ancestry associated with “flaunt;” when it entered usage it already meant an ostentatious display. Everything went along just fine for several hundred years, with grammarians flaunting their knowledge and nobody flouting the rules. Then along came the 20th century, and for some reason “flaunt” began appearing in print frequently when the author clearly meant “flout.” All the grammar and usage guides howled about it, but to no avail; normal language speakers tend not to read or care about textbooks of those sorts. 

Dictionaries in English don’t exactly tell you “what a word means.” What they do is record what words are being used for when the dictionary is assembled. If the usage of a word changes enough for a lexicographer (dictionary writer) to judge it “accepted,” into the dictionary it goes. That’s what happened with the shifted meaning of “flaunt.” When it comes to English, you can finagle the system. If you flout a rule long enough, and get enough other people to go along with you, the rule changes. Who knows, it might even work that way in card games.